An engrossing, inspiring read for lovers of dogs and humans alike.
The fascinating story of the woman working to address the “problem pet population” in Los Angeles.
In downtown L.A., Lori Weise is known as the Dog Lady, but her work is unlike the standard stories of Humane Society and pet adoption features. Mithers introduces Weise as a child, with her own beloved pet and personal suffering, before following her decades of work in Skid Row, South L.A., and Watts. Weise’s mission, which she calls the Downtown Dog Rescue, is to help poor and unhoused individuals keep and properly care for their pets, even as they battle demons like addiction, PTSD, and omnipresent violence. The author composes her vivid portrait from a series of stories about the people and animals Weise has helped, each indicative of how deeply a person’s well-being is connected to the well-being of their pets. Weise’s work has dovetailed with initiatives like the rise of no-kill shelters, the demonization of pit bulls, and the promotion of “adopt don’t shop” by celebrities. Mithers dutifully outlines these movements and their problems, providing eye-opening financial details, revelations of discriminatory adoption policies, and a jaw-dropping account of pet hoarders. As Weise has discovered, the biggest problem with the usual rescue paradigm, laced with judgment, “was neither a pet problem nor a people problem. It was a poverty problem.” The Dog Lady’s revolutionary power stems from leaning into the intersection of comprehensive social justice work and pet rescue efforts, and the author draws considerable narrative force from following her subject into that intersection. The text shows both Mithers and Weise confronting systemic issues like racism, housing costs, and the failure of social safety nets, simultaneously stirring outrage, stimulating compassion, and suggesting a better understanding of how to help people living in poverty care for the pets they love.
An engrossing, inspiring read for lovers of dogs and humans alike.Pub Date: Aug. 20, 2024
ISBN: 9781640095984
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Counterpoint
Review Posted Online: May 15, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular...
A neurosurgeon with a passion for literature tragically finds his perfect subject after his diagnosis of terminal lung cancer.
Writing isn’t brain surgery, but it’s rare when someone adept at the latter is also so accomplished at the former. Searching for meaning and purpose in his life, Kalanithi pursued a doctorate in literature and had felt certain that he wouldn’t enter the field of medicine, in which his father and other members of his family excelled. “But I couldn’t let go of the question,” he writes, after realizing that his goals “didn’t quite fit in an English department.” “Where did biology, morality, literature and philosophy intersect?” So he decided to set aside his doctoral dissertation and belatedly prepare for medical school, which “would allow me a chance to find answers that are not in books, to find a different sort of sublime, to forge relationships with the suffering, and to keep following the question of what makes human life meaningful, even in the face of death and decay.” The author’s empathy undoubtedly made him an exceptional doctor, and the precision of his prose—as well as the moral purpose underscoring it—suggests that he could have written a good book on any subject he chose. Part of what makes this book so essential is the fact that it was written under a death sentence following the diagnosis that upended his life, just as he was preparing to end his residency and attract offers at the top of his profession. Kalanithi learned he might have 10 years to live or perhaps five. Should he return to neurosurgery (he could and did), or should he write (he also did)? Should he and his wife have a baby? They did, eight months before he died, which was less than two years after the original diagnosis. “The fact of death is unsettling,” he understates. “Yet there is no other way to live.”
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular clarity.Pub Date: Jan. 19, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-8129-8840-6
Page Count: 248
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Sept. 29, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2015
PERSPECTIVES
An ebullient nature lover’s paean to birds.
A charming bird journey with the bestselling author.
In his introduction to Tan’s “nature journal,” David Allen Sibley, the acclaimed ornithologist, nails the spirit of this book: a “collection of delightfully quirky, thoughtful, and personal observations of birds in sketches and words.” For years, Tan has looked out on her California backyard “paradise”—oaks, periwinkle vines, birch, Japanese maple, fuchsia shrubs—observing more than 60 species of birds, and she fashions her findings into delightful and approachable journal excerpts, accompanied by her gorgeous color sketches. As the entries—“a record of my life”—move along, the author becomes more adept at identifying and capturing them with words and pencils. Her first entry is September 16, 2017: Shortly after putting up hummingbird feeders, one of the tiny, delicate creatures landed on her hand and fed. “We have a relationship,” she writes. “I am in love.” By August 2018, her backyard “has become a menagerie of fledglings…all learning to fly.” Day by day, she has continued to learn more about the birds, their activities, and how she should relate to them; she also admits mistakes when they occur. In December 2018, she was excited to observe a Townsend’s Warbler—“Omigod! It’s looking at me. Displeased expression.” Battling pesky squirrels, Tan deployed Hot Pepper Suet to keep them away, and she deterred crows by hanging a fake one upside down. The author also declared war on outdoor cats when she learned they kill more than 1 billion birds per year. In May 2019, she notes that she spends $250 per month on beetle larvae. In June 2019, she confesses “spending more hours a day staring at birds than writing. How can I not?” Her last entry, on December 15, 2022, celebrates when an eating bird pauses, “looks and acknowledges I am there.”
An ebullient nature lover’s paean to birds.Pub Date: April 23, 2024
ISBN: 9780593536131
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Jan. 19, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
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